Could it be a poltergeist?

Regular readers will know that I have some experience with feeling, seeing, or sensing things that can’t be explained easily. Or at least, are easily explained away, but with questions tapping at the edges of our understanding of the physical world. I’ve sensed curious ghosts, sad ghosts and one rather angry ghost…but I don’t think I’ve experienced a poltergeist.

Not that I want to.

Poltergeist is a German word that literally means noisy spirit. People from many different cultures have written stories about poltergeists from the earliest invention of writing; so they are neither a western nor a modern invention!

I wrote a poltergeist scene into Truth Unveiled and really enjoyed researching poltergeists to do it.

Alessandro Colle/Shutterstock.com

Unlike regular ghosts, poltergeists are able to interact directly with the world of the living. Every poltergeist story includes things like items moving, rapping on walls and floors, appliances and lights switched on and off, even direct attacks on humans and their pets. In some well-documented (though not necessarily proven) accounts, people have been thrown from their beds or levitated while asleep.

In numerous real-life stories, people and places are haunted by a poltergeist for considerable time, in spite of repeated efforts to remove the entity.

But is a poltergeist just an angry ghost? Probably not is the prevailing opinion among paranormalists, but that’s just about the only thing there is agreement on.

A lot of paranormal and psychologist researchers now believe that poltergeist activity is nothing to do with ghosts or spirits; but instead is psychokinetic activity caused by the subconscious mind of someone under emotional, psychological or physical stress. Quite often, in well recorded poltergeist stories, the activity centers around a troubled teenager.

Of course this doesn’t explain the recorded incidences where there isn’t anyone that fits the profile of someone being under stress. And there’s as little evidence to support the existence of psychokinetic activity as there is the existence of ghosts or other entities.

“There is also a popular theory that spirits get their energy from the atmosphere (hence the cold spots) and from other people, especially emotional, sensitive, ungrounded ones (adolescents come to mind here). So you could make an equal argument that says spirits are attracted to teens, not that teens are creating poltergeist.”

I did a quick poll among my friends and found a widespread belief that poltergeists are real. I was shocked when 4 out of 9 of the people I polled told me they’d experienced poltergeist activity directly themselves! Seven out of the nine people believed poltergeists to be daemons or some kind of malicious spirit.

My husband is a total skeptic, and puts this down to movies like: The Exorcist, Poltergeist, and Amityville Horror. (All of which I watched with all the lights on, and a pillow to hide behind.)

I can see how popular culture has cemented ideas into our brains… But the stories behind those popular movies came from somewhere. The stories that were recorded hundreds of years ago weren’t fueled by big budget movies, popular television series or social media.

Poltergeists are one of the most interesting paranormal phenomena.

What are your thoughts? Have you experienced the paranormal? Have you experienced a poltergeist activity? I’d love to hear from you 🙂 comments make me happy 🙂